


Gone for a Soldier

by Purrdence



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-02-10 02:44:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2008023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrdence/pseuds/Purrdence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Steve Rogers finally finds his Ghost?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghost Hunting

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to my beta reader, chaosmanor. <3
> 
> I used to write fic a lot, a looooong time ago. Then I saw CA:tWS. That night, as I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep, I turned to my husband and said. "I need to see Bucky/Steve stories." Not long after I got hold of pen and paper and started writing...

So here he was, running through the rain, chasing a ghost from his past.

The light from his flashlight bounced haphazardly over the darkened bushes and trees and Steve almost missed the quick reflection off something as he bounded along the dirt path. Metal; it had to be metal. He was willing to bet a dollar that there weren't any wood around here – wet or not – that would reflect a beam of light the same way as shiny metal.

Wet leaves squelched underfoot as Steve turned, casting the light around more deliberately as he retraced his steps. He and Sam had been on the trail of the Winter Soldier for weeks now and it was the closest Steve had got to his quarry. There! There was the glint of metal again and a flash of red against it.

“Bucky?” Steve kept his voice low and calm as he grew closer, slowing his pace to match the tone of his voice.

“Why do you keep calling me that?!?” The Winter’s Soldier’s voice was defiant, bravado barely masking confusion, pain and the frantic creature within, panicking because he was trapped without an easy way to flee. As his pursuer grew closer, he held up his arm of flesh and bone, his hand shielding his eyes from the light until Steve lowered his flashlight.

“Because that’s who you _are_ ,” Steve replied, firmly but gently. Steve frowned when he saw that the Soldier was in rough shape. The way the man held his flesh arm against his torso suggested an injury there. Earlier in the day Steve had overhead a report over the police scanner of a ‘strange looking’ intruder being chased off a farm and the owner letting off several shots. From the damaged and exposed mechanics on the Winter Soldier’s metal arm, at least one bullet made contact. The Soldier’s eyes were dull with pain and whether the sheen of moisture covering his face was sweat or rain – or both – Steve couldn’t tell.

Steve stepped a little closer, looming over the Soldier. “I’ve told you that already. Do you still not remember?”

The Winter Soldier looked around, evaluating potential avenues for escape. “I don’t know,” he replied tersely, but hesitation in his eyes hinted that he wasn’t being entirely honest. “They did _things_ to my head, ok? I don’t know.”

Steve saw what the Soldier was doing – he’d do the same, if the positions were reversed. So he stepped back, keeping his arms lowered and indicated the trail they were standing a little ways off. “I’m not going to stop you,” he declared quietly, hoping it would earn the man’s trust. “But I’d really like it if you didn’t go. You’re a hard man to find, you know.”

“You were looking for me?” The Soldier looked up at Steve, indecision and conflicting emotions clear on his face, before he struggled to his feet. His mechanical arm whirred softly as he used a tree trunk for support. When he started to waver on his feet, Steve automatically stepped in, ready to help support him. With a grunt the Soldier pushed past Steve roughly, breaking into a drunken run once he hit the trail.

For a moment Steve stood there, taken aback his childhood friend still didn’t remember him. “Well that didn’t go the way I’d hoped,” he said, disappointed.

He listened to the Winter Soldier crash through the undergrowth – then suddenly the forest was still.

“Something is wrong.” In an instant Steve was running down the path again, the rain that had been merely a gentle drizzle changing to a downpour that was becoming more insistent by the minute.

Despite being injured, the Soldier managed to put some distance between himself and Steve, before tripping on a well camouflaged tree root and falling flat on his face at speed. Steve found him trying to get enough purchase in the slick mud to get back onto his feet, having difficultly putting his weight on his metal arm and the story didn’t seem much different with his right, from the pained grunt that escaped the Winter Soldier’s lips when he tried.

“Hey, careful there,” Steve said, offering his hand to the fallen man to help him up. A moment later, Steve regretted the decision as the Soldier used the mud to swing around on his butt and swept Steve’s legs out from under him. Landing in the mud with a squelch, Steve sat there, stunned, then hit the soft ground in frustration, leaving behind a deep handprint.”Dammit Bucky, I’m trying to help you!”

“ _Help_ me?” the Soldier spat back. “I’ve had people say that to me… for as long as they’ve let me remember… and _nothing_ they did was actually help _me_. Nothing!”

“I’m not those people!” Steve insisted, holding out his hand again. “You know I mean it. I wouldn’t have tried to save you on the helicarrier if I was, now would I? _Those people_ would have left you trapped under that beam to die. I didn’t.”

The Winter Soldier scrambled back through the mud as if Steve’s hand was electrified, looking for something stable to help him stand. “You’ll just hand me over to SHIELD. Or the government. They’ll stick me in some prison cell to rot.”

“SHIELD doesn’t exist anymore, not the SHIELD we knew, and I know you actually know that. I know you haven’t been living in a cave since I saw you last,” Steve replied. He pulled his own shield from the holder on his back and held it over his head to keep the rain out of his eyes. “I helped destroy my own organisation in order to take down the one controlling you. Everything’s in ashes.”

“And your government?” The Soldier sat there, letting the rain run over his face. His eyes flickered up, taking in the red and white bands on Steve’s shield.

“If what Romanov told me is anything to go by, there are those in my government that would love to shove me in a cell next to her and you. They won’t, however, not to me or her. But we’re still staying out of their way for now, just to be on the safe side. Just like you are.”When the Soldier made a scoffing noise at this, Steve added, “I won’t let them put you in a cell, not while there’s breath in my body.”

The Winter Soldier stared at him as if Steve had just sprouted a second head that sang opera. “You’re lying.”

Standing up slowly and deliberately, Steve held out his free hand once more. “No, I’m not,” he said patiently. “I’ll keep saying it until it gets though your thick skull, James Buchanan Barnes – I’m with you till the end of the line.”

The same hesitation that stopped him from delivering the killing blow so many weeks before on the helicarrier filled the Winter Soldier’s face. Hesitation turned to suspicion; there was a layer of knowledge that wasn’t in his eyes the last time. “Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m your friend, whether you like it or not,” answered Steve. He shone the light on the Soldier’s torso, now noting the bloodstain down the side of the other man’s shirt. “We need to do something about your injuries, Buck. That’s got to be more than a scratch.”

For a moment Steve saw the face of a man, strapped to a gurney in Zola’s lab so long ago, just keeping himself from toppling into the oblivion of his mind. Then the face of the man on the helicarrier, pulling himself out of the same mental void he’d been pushed into. The Winter Soldier looked up at him, blinking hard against the rain running into his eyes.

_“Steve.”_ Bucky Barnes reached out and grabbed Steve Roger’s hand.


	2. Somewhere Safe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha! Another chapter! Blame life for biting me in the arse.

“I thought I saw something back here,” Steve said as they backtracked down the trail. “Pretty sure I did. I was moving rather quickly…”

Bucky limped along next to him, casting a wary glance at his companion from time to time. Even in the half shadows cast by the flashlight, Steve could see Bucky was still skittish enough to turn and flee again if he felt threatened. “There aren’t any agents out there waiting to meet us, SHIELD, HYDRA, CIA, KGB, FBI or otherwise,” Steve reassured him. “I came here alone.”

Bucky looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “You always tell the truth?” he asked, the scepticism in his voice clear.

“That I do,” Steve replied with a little grin. “Except for the few times when it’s beneficial not to. They don’t happen often, if I can help it.”

Before Bucky could interject, Steve added quickly, “This is not one of those times, I promise you.”

“So I just have to trust you on that?” Bucky replied dryly. 

“Yes.” Steve continued to swing his flashlight in a wide arc before them, hoping he’d actually seen what he thought he had seen in a fleeting glance as he’d ran up the trail earlier. “I know it’s a strange concept considering everything that’s happened, but sometimes you do.”

When Steve got no response to this, he turned, shining the light on and saw him a few steps back, stumbling on the path. Almost dropping the flashlight in the process, he reached out and grabbed Bucky by the upper arms as Bucky started to pitch forward. “Whoa, careful there,” Steve said.

They stood there, staring at each other in the dim light, each holding their breath. Steve broke the silence first, face filled with concern when he realised the sickly sheen on Bucky’s face wasn’t from the rain. He placed his hand over his friend’s forehead. Bucky flinched from the contact – when was the last time someone had touched him with care and tenderness?

“You’re burning up,” Steve murmured worriedly. He gently eased away the hand Bucky was holding against his side and nearly dropped the flashlight again when he saw the mixture of mud and blood on it. “We need to find that hut or whatever it was – fast.”

“I can walk - ” Bucky started to protest as Steve lifted him up into his arms.

“This is quicker,” came the reply as Steve broke into a brisk jog. “Hold on and take the flashlight, would you?”

Bucky thought Steve was joking for the first few steps, but as Steve’s pace picked up, it was clear that he really wasn’t. He slipped his metal arm around the back of Steve’s neck and rested his hand, holding the flashlight, on Steve’s shoulder to give them some illumination. He watched Steve’s face, only inches from his, as they sped down the path. It was a face both familiar and foreign to him and it confused the hell out of him. Steve’s voice brought him out of the fevered trance he was slipping into. “There it is!”

The cabin was several yards from the trail, almost hidden among the trees. Someone without an eye for detail like Steve could have easily missed it. There were no lights on in the building and no other signs of anyone being home. At the back of the cabin, there was a small deck jutting out, with a couple of chairs to sprawl out on. The land had been cleared for several feet before the forest took over again. 

The small amount of moonlight reflected off the glassy panels on this side of the roof. “Amazing things, those are,” Steve said with admiration, looking up at them. “They get electricity from the sun! Can you imagine what it would have been like if we had had them when we were kids?”

“Uh… yeah?” Bucky replied slowly. “I’m not sure if it’s what they did to me or it’s the fever playing with my brain, but I’m hitting static there…”

Setting Bucky down on a chair, Steve tried not to frown at Bucky’s admission. Everything wasn’t going to come back all at once, Steve knew that, but there was still the sharp pang of loss for what had been taken. Pushing that aside for the moment, Steve looked over the door, glad it was on this side of the building where there would be few clues to be seen by a casual passerby on the hiking trail. He hunted around for something that might hide a spare key. Steve looked up just as Bucky rose to his feet and was drawing his left arm back, hand curled into a fist and ready to punch out one of the glass panes that made up the top half of the door. “Bucky, no!” Steve cried, hand out to stop him.

“What? It’s only a little bit of glass.” Bucky lowered his hand, looking at him like a puzzled child. “It’ll be easy – break the pane, reach in, unlock the door.”

“But this place doesn’t belong to us,” Steve explained as he poked around some decorative rocks by the foot of the steps going from the deck to the ground. “Sure we’re using it without permission and all, but we can at least _try_ our best not the wreck the place while we’re here. Also, I think you should strip down to your underwear.”

“My underwear…?” Bucky echoed slowly. “Did I hit your head too hard or something?”

Steve shone the light on Bucky again. “Have you seen yourself lately? You’re covered in mud, blood and God’s knows what else. You are _not_ trampling all that through inside. I won’t let you.”

With a resigned sigh, Bucky started shrugging of the cloth jacket and t-shirt he had ‘acquired’ in an attempt to blend in after the battle over Washington DC. He pulled it slowly and painfully away from his wounded side – not an easy task with drying blood making the fabric stick to his skin. He then made the mistake of breathing in as he pulled the t-shirt over his head, and gagged a little.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked, taking the steps two at a time in his haste.

“Think these need a wash… badly,” Bucky said, voice muffled as he struggled to get all the fabric over his head. With a determined grunt, he pulled free of the shirt, dropped it on the ground, and sat down on the chair to start on his boots.

Steve stood there for a moment, staring. Shaking his head quickly to himself to get himself to focus, he turned the light on himself. “Wow, I’m almost as filthy as you are,” he remarked to Bucky, rather impressed.

He put the flashlight down on the arm of the other chair, leaned his shield against the chair and shucked off the harness for the shield before pulling his own grimy t-shirt over his head. Steve was folding his shirt neatly, ready to place it on the seat of the chair, when he realised that Bucky had stopped mid-unlacing and was gazing at him. Steve cocked his head to the side a little, asking, “Are you okay?”

“Fine!” Bucky ducked his head, fumbling with the laces on his other boot.

Steve shrugged a little and placed his shirt on the chair, before pulling off his running shoes and socks, then unbuckling the belt holding up his jeans. “Pity we don’t have Natasha here, she’d know how to pick that lock…” Steve mused ruefully.

“I could do it,” Bucky said, his view creeping back up as Steve wiggled out of his jeans. “If I only had the tools, which I don’t anymore. I think I dropped them back on that farm.”

Steve stood in nothing but his tight, white boxer shorts and stared at the door. “Looks like we might have to go with your idea,” he said eventually, the tone of his voice indicating he wasn’t happy with it, but had resigned himself to it.

Bucky rose to his feet, pulling off his torn and dirty jeans, leaving them in a messy pile on the decking, next to his other clothes and boots. Bucky padded over to the door, Steve’s eyes straying downwards when he noticed that at some point the rain had soaked through the jeans and now Bucky’s black briefs clung to the curve of his rear snugly. He forced his eyes back up, wondering if he was coming down with a fever too, as it suddenly felt warmer. 

“Get a grip, Rogers,” he murmured under his breath.

Curling his metal hand into a fist, Bucky quickly punched through the pane of glass closest to the doorknob. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose as glass tinkled to the floor. “I really would have liked to have prevented that,” he sighed.

Shrugging apologetically, Bucky reached through the jagged remains and unlocked the door from the inside. He turned the doorknob and used his shoulder to gently push open the door, sagging against it as a hot flush took grip of his body. He fumbled around the edge of the doorframe, finding a light switch and flicking it on. 

First Bucky, then Steve, looked down at the wound on his side. It had opened up, most likely after Bucky had ripped his shirt away from it, and blood leaked out of it where it wasn’t prevented from doing so by all the mud and gunk covering it. The edges of the wound were a fierce red where Bucky’s immune system was putting up a fight against the microscopic invaders. Bucky grimaced. “Shit.”

Steve stepped in past Bucky, carefully navigating over the broken glass, and quickly scanned the room. Everything seemed to be in one large, room, at first – kitchenette to one side, couch, television with something to play movies on and a small collection of either DVDs or Blu Rays (Steve still couldn’t tell the difference between the two), and one large bed. He tried the first door that looked like an internal door – it was a closet with clothes and a few other things he could examine later. A second door provided to be the bathroom. “Well that was ea-” he started saying to his friend, until he saw that Bucky was swaying like a drunk again. The open door was really the only thing holding him up.

Steve put his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and escorted him into the bathroom, leaning the man against the wall in the small room while he turned the cold faucet on in the shower to give the system time to kick in. “Fastest way to clean you up,” he explained. “Then I can see what’s left in the wound, get that out. If you’re anything like me, you’ll shake this off in a few days. I really don’t want to think how bad this would be if you weren’t. Like me, I mean.”

He frowned at the implications, both good and bad, of their situation, then at the wound. “What happened there?”

“The farmer I tried to talk to had connections to… to _this_.” Bucky motioned towards his metal arm with his flesh and bone hand. “He was a Soviet agent, maybe HYDRA… who knows anymore? But he didn’t want to talk to me and chased me off. Wasn’t _that_ good a shot, really.”

“Not _that_ good?” Steve said, looking at where a bullet had gone through Bucky’s flesh like it was hot butter, then the damage to the metal arm.

“I wouldn’t have missed,” Bucky replied flatly, gently touching a finger to Steve’s chest, right where his heart was. 

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Steve agreed softly. “Not even before.”

Holding the plastic shower curtain aside for him, Steven gently nudged his friend in the direction of the shower. Bucky obediently started to step into small cubical when the water first hit his skin. 

With a panicked scream he backed out of the shower quickly, not stopping until he hit the opposite wall of the room and the drywall groaned under the force of his body hitting it. Bucky’s eyes were wide with naked fear. _The door shutting on him again._ His body shook so hard his metal hand tapped an erratic staccato beat on the wall. _The cold racing over his skin, eating into him even has he tried to push the door open._ “No… no… NO!”

“Bucky!” Steve waved his hand through the shower spray, cursing himself when he realised he’d forgotten to add the hot water. His attention snapped from his mistake to his friend when Bucky’s cries turned from mere ‘no’s to frantic begging ‘not to be put back in’. “Bucky!” BUCKY! It’s alright; I just forgot to add the hot water. I’m an idiot.”

He stepped closer to the panicking man, making sure Bucky could see straight into his face. “You’re here, Bucky, not there. In a bathroom, somewhere in the woods. With me. You’re safe, okay? You’re safe here with me, Steve Rogers. Your friend.”

Steve’s voice cut through the memories that invaded Bucky's brain and Bucky looked around the room rapidly, his gaze settling on Steve once he had determined Steve to be telling the truth. Looking over Steve’s shoulder, his brain finally let Bucky see the shower was just a shower.

“They used to freeze me between missions,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know how many times they did it, but I remember the cold before I would go under…”

A photograph in the file Natasha had acquired for him came up in Steve’s mind. “The cryogenics chamber,” Steve murmured, visibly shuddering as another memory came to mind.

Bucky picked up on the shudder. “They froze you too?”

“Not like you.” Steve shook his head, frowning and wrapping his arms around himself as he recalled his own experience of the creeping chill then… nothing. “After you died – after you _fell_ – we stormed the last of Johann Schmidt’s bases. I ended up in a bomber heading towards New York City and it was either crash the plane in the Arctic or let our home be destroyed. The plane ended up in the middle of the ice and for some reason I ended up a frozen chunk of ice and in a coma for seventy years instead of dying. A ‘Capsicle’ as Stark puts it.”

Steve reached in and twisted the handles in the shower this way and that until the icy cold water was washed away by a stream of pleasantly hot water. Gentle clouds of steam wafted up and around the room. “So yes, I know what it’s like to be slowly frozen… I don’t really like the cold much any more either.”

Bucky still stood pressed up against the other wall, eying the shower more with hesitation than fear this time. “It’s fine,” Steve said, stepping under the water to reassure the spooked man. He sighed contentedly as the hot water worked on his tired muscles. “C’mon Bucky, we need to get you cleaned up, then we can patch you up and then _sleep_.”

The frightened animal inside Bucky rose up, his gaze alternating between Steve waiting for him in the shower, the water running over his body, and the back door in the main room, which was still wide open, then forest beyond. Bucky stood up on shaky legs and stumbled out of the bathroom.

Steve let out a strangled cry as Bucky disappeared from his view, followed by a slam and a click as the rear door was shut firmly. Heart sinking into his stomach for the second time that night, Steve had just stepped out of the shower, dripping water everywhere, when Bucky walked back into the small room.

“What?” Bucky asked, surprised at the anguish on the Captain’s face.

“I – I thought you had run away again,” Steve admitted, feeling very sheepish.

“The back door was still open. I shut it,” Bucky said. The corners of his mouth curled up gently with the realisation that someone gave a damn about _him_ ; and not what he could do for them. 

“The door…” Steve repeated, still a little stunned

“Yeah, the door. I shut it.” Bucky brushed up against Steve as he stepped under the stream of hot water. He soft moans echoed those of Steve’s a few minutes earlier. “This is good.”

Steve stood stuck to the spot, mouth opening and closing like a stunned fish. “I… uh… soap…”

He opened up the medicine cabinet, using the mirrored door to hide the hotness creeping up his cheeks. “Remember when all a man needed was a bar of soap to keep clean?” he said, looking at the potions and lotions stored there.

Bucky made a soft, dismissive ‘pfffft’ “For you maybe, I always liked putting a splash of Dunhill for Men on after.”

Closing the door with a snap, Steve grinned at his friend. “You’re remembering.”

“I am…” The grin was infectious; Bucky’s face mirroring Steve’s as he recalled the cologne he liked to wear. “You got me some for Christmas.”

“I did!” Steve nodded enthusiastically. It was a small thing to remember, but it was another step towards reclaiming Bucky Barnes from the darkness.

Bucky held out the bar of soap that had been sitting on a little shelf in the shower stall. “Will you help me?”

Smiling, Steve nodded, stepped into the shower and took the soap. “Always.”


	3. Open Your Eyes and See

Bucky thought he was dreaming. The bed was soft, comfortable and warm, not the narrow, hard cot in the HYRDRA safe house. They hadn’t cared much for his comfort there. He lay on his back, looking around at the parts of the cabin that could be seen by just moving his head without having to lift it. Sunlight crept around the edges of the curtains on the windows and the top half of the rear door. Mid to late afternoon, he guessed from the quality of the light. He was surprised that he’d slept for so long. He hadn’t ever been allowed to sleep in. A ‘long’ sleep meant being put in deep freeze. 

He smiled to himself. Not a dream.

When was the last time he had had anywhere to sleep that was dry, comfortable, safe and he wasn’t at the mercy of someone else?

Safe. He rolled the word around in his mind. It felt good. No, not good – _fantastic_.

Bucky almost jumped out of his skin as an arm slid across his chest and a warm, muscular body snuggled up against his left-hand side. He was certain Steve had gone to sleep on the couch, yet Steve was in the bed with Bucky. Ignoring the voice in his head scolding him for not keeping aware of his surroundings, Bucky didn't try to push Steve away.

Lifting up the bedding Bucky saw they were still in the t-shirts and gym shorts they found in the closet after their shower. Bucky lifted up the covers again to look at the shirt he was wearing. Who the hell was ‘The Doctor’?

It felt exquisitely strange to be lying in a bed with someone. Had he done this in his past? Male or female? He couldn’t tell for sure, but a thought briefly rose to the surface of his mind and quickly burst like a soap bubble -- maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t the first time he’d woken up next to _this_ man.

When Steve wriggled even closer against Bucky’s side, it felt like Steve didn’t want to let him go. Bucky slowly and carefully moved his metal arm around Steve’s body, trying not to wake the sleeper as he did, until Steve’s head rested on Bucky’s shoulder. At least the t-shirt sleeve meant Steve’s cheek wasn’t pressed up against the cold metal. 

Bucky hesitated for several moments, debating his next action. Then he realized with a start what part of the problem was -- he was still waiting for someone to tell him what to do. Even though he’d been without official orders for many weeks now, he had still been following the persistent, harsh voice in his head, giving him orders. He had still been on A Mission. ,i>Find out. Find out everything. Hadn’t that brought him to this part of the state? Hadn’t that been the reason he’d ended up fleeing through a forest, injured and thinking he was being pursued by the person who had shot him? But the Voice had shrunk back, cowering, when the person with the light turned out to be Captain America?

Despite the little flare up only minutes before, the Mission was on hold, the Voice gagged and bound in a corner of his mind. Now he could choose something because _he_ wanted to.

Bucky gently wrapped his arm around Steve’s shoulder and back, resting his hand on the side of Steve's torso, just above the small of Steve's back. The servos in his arm complained a little as he bent the limb; he’d noticed the arm had been losing strength and some power since he’d been shot. Nothing he could do about it right now.

Captain America – Steve – seemed determined that Bucky should rest here and heal. Bucky had the feeling if he tried to run away now, Steve would drag him back and make him. Steve was stubborn like that… this person… his friend? Everything that he had seen, everything that he had read, even the feeling that rose from his bones said that Steve Rogers had been his friend. Bucky was still flummoxed that despite everything that had happened, Steve still insisted the Soldier was his friend.

Bucky lay there, mind jumping from thought to thought with little rhyme or reason, occasionally circling back on his name – or at least the nickname Steve kept calling him. _Bucky._ While there were still so many things that were a mystery or that he couldn’t be sure of the truth of, being called Bucky by this man seemed right. 

He reached over with his living arm and stroked the top of Steve’s hair tentatively. The softness of it intrigued him; it was a texture he could not find anything comparable to in his shattered memory. Curiosity got the better of him and he brushed his fingers over the sleeping man’s hair again. He let his fingers linger, before Steve mumbled something in his sleep and Bucky snatched his hand back. A pain in his side flared up for a moment with the sudden movement, scolding him before settling down to a dull ache.

_“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Bucky had asked, sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but a bath towel around his hips, watching Steve boil sewing thread on the stove in the kitchenette._

_“I know some field medicine,” Steve replied, dropping a long sewing needle into the little saucepan. “We can’t take you to a hospital without drawing attention, so this is the next best thing for now. I only wish the first aid kit here wasn’t so… basic. The sewing kit’s useful enough. We’ll make do.”_

Bucky gingerly traced the row of neat stitches protected by a large bandage taped to his side. They had hurt going in, but Steve’s sewing skills were good and, after all, Bucky had had worse before. His right shoulder ached for a moment with the memory of jumping into the Potomac River with a dislocated shoulder.

When the pain in his side spiked again, the Soldier closer his eyes and tried to concentrate on his breath. They had established earlier there were no painkillers in the first aid kit that would work on either of their heightened metabolisms. Bucky needed to fall back on controlled breathing and concentrating on blocking the pain mentally the best he could. Almost as an afterthought, he laced his fingers of his right hand through those of Steve’s; their hands resting on Bucky’s chest.

Bucky breathed slow, and as deeply as his side let him. He ignored the pain from his side, instead focusing on the sensation of Steve’s hand in his. His skin. The warm flesh resting against his own. Eventually measured breaths gave way to the sigh of slumber.


End file.
